Posted By Chris Fitzsimon On June 29, 2012 @ 7:08 am In Top of the Morning | Comments Disabled

[1]The Supreme Court’s ruling on the Affordable Care Act has unleashed another round of ridiculous spin from the folks on the Right, including the “government takeover of health care” claim which GOP spin-doctor-in-chief Frank Luntz has encouraged all Republicans to use since 2009.

It was false then and it is false now. It was dubbed the “Lie of the Year[2],” in 2010 by the Pulitzer Prize winning PolitiFact.

The latest spin from Right Wing Avenue is that the Affordable Care Act is the largest tax increase in history and will raise taxes on all Americans.

That may end up being the lie of the year for 2012. Here’s a explanation[3] from Media Matters which includes this from the well-respected Congressional Budget Office.

After accounting for all of those factors, CBO and JCT estimate that about 4 million people will pay a penalty because they will be uninsured in 2016 (a figure that includes uninsured dependents who have the penalty paid on their behalf)

And as Paul Krugman eloquently reminds[4] us this morning, the most important thing to remember about the ruling is that it will help provide health care for 30 million people who are currently uninsured.

The ruling also leaves in places a long list of benefits that millions of people are already receiving thanks to the Affordable Care Act. Thursday’s Fitzsimon File[5] and this AP story[6] include a rundown of some of the ways the law is already helping people in North Carolina.

Since the law began to be phased in, more than 95,000 young adults in North Carolina became insured with coverage under their parents’ insurance plans, more that 1.1 million people on Medicare received free services such as mammograms and colonoscopies and more than 114,000 seniors received a $250 rebate to help pay for prescription drugs, according to the federal government. Nearly 4,000 residents who were locked out of insurance coverage system because of a pre-existing medical condition are now insured

All that is what the Republicans and the folks on Right Wing Avenue want to stop with their lies and misleading spin.